2025 Draft Budget

The Township of Laurentian Valley has officially undertaken its second sitting of the 2025 budget deliberations and would like to communicate with the public the draft budget which will now be open for comments, with a final public meeting on Tuesday December 3^rd.

Like many other municipalities in Ontario, we have experienced large increases in the cost of doing business and operations in general. Unfortunately, we have also seen reduction to our Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) funding from the Province for 2025 and a significant increase in our Ontario Provincial Police costs. However, the Township of Laurentian Valley is proud to report that we will continue to provide high level services to our ratepayers with maintained commitments towards the needs of our community despite these increases with a balanced approach towards attaining our budget goals. We have stepped up  with record commitments to joint ventures/agreements and continue to commit our focus on of connecting our community.

Here are some highlights from the 2025 draft budget:

Overview: 2025 will see a $614,175 tax levy increase which equates to roughly $109 per median assessed home in Laurentian Valley.

Increases: 2025 will see increases for services provided to the municipality. These increases are partly non-negotiable and are required to be paid yearly by the municipality due to existing agreements or legislated levies put on the municipality.

Some of these include a $253,372 increase in the cost of policing,  a $50,000 increase in gravel which will enable us to maintain our annual goal of 10km of gravel road maintenance as well as keeping up with operational inflationary costs.  This budget also results in an increase of $109,000 to our capital reserve.

User Fees

Laurentian Valley Utility users will see increases to their 2025 utility costs.  Safe drinking water will increase $129 per residential home and wastewater treatment will see an increase of $199 per median assessed home which is strongly influenced by the increased consumption and the recently signed water and wastewater agreement with the City of Pembroke which includes capital and operational full cost recovery.

Laurentian Valley has increased its building fees in an effort to move closer to full cost recovery for building services.

Capital Improvements: In 2025 Laurentian Valley will commit to capital improvements valued at $2,384,500, which include roughly 8km of paved road rehabilitation, efficiency and accessibility updates to select buildings, and much needed safety equipment for our fire department.

Showing Up to the Table: The Township of Laurentian Valley has committed a record $493,500 to support our joint recreation agreement with the City of Pembroke including $425,000 for general recreation, $61,000 for pool repairs, and $68,500 towards the exploration of the possibility of a joint recreation facility with the City of Pembroke.  Laurentian Vally has agreed to contribute funds in partnership with our neighbors to the Community Warming Centre for 2025 in the amount of $20,000.00 and $155,000 to the Pembroke Public Library for library services.